Brave Heart
by HetericaIs2000LightyearsAway
Summary: An amnesiac cat is lost, not knowing where her home is, until she finds it in an unexpected place. 1st challenge for LightClan


Brave Heart

By Heterica

Grayfur remembered walking around the forest as a kit, so serene and lovely. Unfortunately, that was the last thing she remembered. She got up and tried to walk straight. She failed. Whatever had caused her to lose her memory also made her lose her orientation. She promptly vomited.

Indeed, she was lost. She had scents, but no idea who's they were. She attempted to remember a comfort, something joyous but alas, 'twas to no avail.

Pensive, she lay down. Perhaps an idea should cross her mind if she were to first purge it of the murkiness that did lie within it. And then, inspiration struck.

She remembered the wise words of an unnamable fellow, "Follow the brook, go with no strife, for if to the brook you may save your life."

This she took to mean, "follow the brook to get back home." However, home may not be what one expects, as she soon was to find out.

After the rise of the pale yellow orb in the east and then its setting, the stream was still no closer to home. But, as she continued on her melancholy and amnesious way, a vague recollection coalesced into her mind: "Brave Heart". What that meant… was it her name?

Yes, 'twas a proper name, and should it not be, 'twas a proper name for her new self, seeing as she wasn't getting any closer.

As days turned into moons, the traveling feline grew ever weary of her perils. Why did she have to meander without point. "Tis like food without taste, searching for taste it might have had once.", she thought.

Poor Braveheart, solitary in a world she is unbeknownst to and she herself cannot know. However, you have forgotten that she had begun to remember.

That night, a dream crossed her consciousness as she lay asleep on a pad of moss. In the dream, she elaborated on the joyous memory of forest past. There she was, with her mother (who's name is unbeknownst to this day), and one similar to she, her brother.

Suddenly, a vixen hasted from the underbrush, and struck her mother in the jaw. Her mother did collapse into comatose state, and that is when the dream terminated.

She woke up with spine arched and fur standing up. Now she did long for the days when she remembered barely anything, for that was more bearable than utter demise of one you love.

But now, she longed for her brother, so still filled with firey passion of fraternity, she forged on. And as she passed through countless valleys and mountains, she did not cease to think of him.

She trudged on, the image of his scarlet pelt branded in every corner of her diligent mind. She could not remember more, but eventually she craved it. She tried everything to discover even a sole memory of he-she meditated, she prayed to multiple deities, she tried eating certain nonedibles, and yet nothing. She again was on the verge of hopelessness when out of the blue, she saw a sight familiar. It was the first tree she had woken up to after the amnesia.

In fact, it was all coming back, the sorrow, the pain, the joy, the love, the…death. She remembered then why she had gotten amnesia in the first place, what she had fallen from.

There was a cave with charring scars, marking of fire long gone.

And then, she remembered.

All those years ago, it was her brother, taking care of her, who had woken her up to the fire. They exited hastily, but there was no escape-other than the steep escarpment

He said, "Fall on me. Have a Brave Heart."

And that was his demise. She wept furiously as she fell, and she rolled off his body, hitting her head into that first tree.

As the flashback ended, she gasped. This was where home was, and yet it never felt more alien. She was lacking in all relationships and had not a single acquaintance. Pausing to gaze at the skeletal remains of her deceased sibling, she leapt off the cliff.

And it all went black. She felt pain everywhere as her life force drained. And as she drifted to sleep forever, she felt her brave heart give out, and she realized, "Death is home."


End file.
